


Journey

by Nyanoka



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Gen, Writing practice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 07:56:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15814713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyanoka/pseuds/Nyanoka
Summary: Necessity is always the catalyst for change.





	Journey

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not keeping entirely to traditional Fae lore since this is both a writing practice in description for me as well as a way to recycle my DnD character for my original works. This was also written a decently long time ago (1year+?). Un'beta'd.

In his body and his heart and his soul, he knew he had to leave the baying woods, had to abandon the circling mushrooms, multitudes of freckled and banded browns and reds and dying orange, and the diligent trees. Knew he had to cast away the clinging, weeping vines that lovingly caressed his skin and say farewell to the worn stone and petaled beings and dear friends whose silence was now expected.

Leaving one’s home, one known since birth, since before mortal men set foot through the dark fearful thicket, through evergreen trees and frosted leaves, and even before coherent thought and oral word, when men still feared gods and hid in wooden shelters, was a trying and almost unthinkable decision.

But what else could one do when men overstepped their boundaries and held cast steel and forgot their promises? When the skies were blotted out by haze and killing gases?

What else could one do besides cast their lot into the unknown, into the lands beyond the wine-dark sea?

Oh, how he loathed it, the idea and the necessity, the journey and its ponderous things.

The coin had neither been difficult to acquire nor had it been difficult to part with, tinkling and clinking as it fell into soft, unfamiliar hands.

(Oh, how men, no matter the age, loved shining things. Gold and silver and bronze had never been important objects for his kind. For them, it was names, and carelessly said words, and cloying promises, always truth despite what mortals understood.)

And for coin, he boarded, with nothing more than colorful cloth on his form and simple rings, inscribed with swirling, winding forgotten script, on his thin, brown fingers.

(His kind need not more. It was not riches or food they sought, but dreams and whispers and old magic.)

He ignored the curious glances, the suspicious murmurs, and secretly pointed fingers. There was no point in satisfying them, people who had long forgotten the truths and melodies of worldly life.

(The glamour was enough, he was sure. But humans, no matter their age or breed, could always sense abnormalities, having always feared the folk who had lay in wait for foolish travelers and greedy kings and starving peasants, and for good reason.)

On that grand ship, no longer just wooden boards but metal hull and whirling machinery, he stayed for seven days, swaying with the singing sea and whistling birds and humming the world’s quiet eternal song.

During those gloomy days, through sunny and cloudy morns and shimmering starry nights, he wandered the decks, always avoiding them, workers and passengers alike.

Though, the children followed, unsure of nothing but their curiosity at the stranger with ivory hair and brightly lit eyes.

(He expected it, of course. Children, no matter when, who, or where, were always drawn to his kind, those who were still close to the time before, to the primordial land and comforting mists. It is only when they grow old, past the cusp of childhood and into adulthood, that they forget.)

When the ship arrived, with a soft thump, he disembarked to the landing and gazed upon his home, upon the tall buildings, built high and higher, as if to challenge even Mt. Olympus, and screaming vehicles, all metal and garish paints. There, he saw the world as it was now.

(No longer did he see the drawn carriages or hear their familiar clip-clops and squeaking wheels and the whinny of crying horses as the whip lashed out. No longer did he see stone paved paths and scampering children with their harried mothers, only concrete and suit-adorned adults. Oh, how out of place he must have looked, in garments more fit for the old nobles found in children’s tales than a world that was swiftly moving past.)

He yearned then for his home, the pattering of rain on canopies and the sight of working men, plowing and sowing then-fertile fields, and of dogs yapping and the sight of herded sheep and old mills spinning.

He even missed them, the mischievous will-o-wisps and the ever-busy dullahans and even the thunderous wailing of the banshees that lurked in the outskirts of villages.

But, he reminded himself, that was far-gone, an old past that could never be returned to.

There was only the future, in a land only in the beginnings of its ruin, whose magic still sounded strongly in its chest.

Here, in what the mortals called the New World, he would make his nest once more.

Here, he would contend with the local spirits and humans alike.

But, what other choice did he have?

The Isles’ magic was no longer purely his, no longer as pure as it once was and shrouded in fog and machinery, only fit for witches and their ilk.

For him, the New World was now his home, must be called home.

He sighed, still lost in his thoughts and began to walk, blending easily into the crowds despite his garb.

There was no use in regrets or doubts.

Folk like him had no such use for those things.

Those were only for desperate, dealing mortals.


End file.
